[Samba] Autocad file corruption...

[David Brodbeck]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Robert A Wooldridge [mailto:bob.wooldridge at edm-inc.com]

> I am using Samba version 2.2.5 on debian stable (but not 
> debian package,
> we just build it).  Autocad version is 2002.  Our office has about 15
> draftsman and designers who are heavy autocad users.  Several 
> have been
> reporting the problem so it does tend to point to the network unless
> it's something in the Samba config.  I have not looked at the 
> switches,
> just the NIC in the file server.  It's a 3com vortex.  I have used
> mii-diag to check this card.  From what I can tell, the -w switch will
> look for inconsistancies in the card and this seems to indicate all is
> well.  I guess I should start thinking about the switches.

Mostly, make sure the NIC and the switch agree about whether the connection
is full or half duplex.  If this is wrong you'll probably have noticed bad
file transfer performance (but only in one direction), as well, though.
Another dead giveaway is when the NIC reports a lot of late collisions, but
the switch doesn't, or vice versa.  (Unless you have managed switches you
may not have any way of knowing how many collisions the switch is seeing,
though.)

Turning off oplocks will probably help.  Oplocks are unforgiving of network
problems.  The performance hit probably won't be terrible if you have to run
with oplocks disabled.

My suspicions point towards a network problem or misconfiguration because
we've used Samba 2.2.1 through 2.2.7a with AutoCAD versions 2000i through
2002 without any corruption, except for that one user who had a bad network
connection.  We only have about five CAD users but they hit the file server
pretty heavily, because many of our drawings reference several dozen xrefs
each.  These kinds of problems can be really difficult to nail down.